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Pear Linux Review

Here a roundup of the latest reviews, including Switching From Mac To Linux? Pear Linux May Make It Easier, Two months with Windows 8, Apple 2012: The Year in Review, Western Digital Red (WD30EFRX) 3 TB Hard Disk Drive Review, and Samsung DA-E750 Wireless Audio Dock.

Switching From Mac To Linux? Pear Linux May Make It Easier @ MakeUseOf

There’s been much discussion about the positives and negatives when it comes to Linux‘s distribution fragmentation. Although it’s horrible strategy when it comes to marketing and increasing Linux’s desktop market share because of the lack of universally-applicable support, it’s good when it comes to catering to specific needs.

As such, there are thousands of Linux distributions out in the wild which address certain needs a user may have, while others want to improve on other distributions. Whatever the case may be for a distribution’s existence, no one can deny that there are plenty of choices for everyone. For those who are familiar with Macs or would like to use a system which works like one, they may be interested in a distribution called Pear Linux.

Microsoft's operating systems have come a long way since the 1990s. Before the introduction of Windows 95, many of the popularly used programs and games were DOS exclusive, but by the time that Windows 98 hit the scene the command-line based DOS was pretty much a thing from the past. Windows 98 was succeeded by Windows Me, this operating system had a very short shelftime, it was notorious for its poor stability and many users complained it was a regression from Windows 98.

Then came Windows XP, this operating system was launched in October 2001 and although it was first met with harsh criticism, the operating system quickly gained a wide adoption. Windows Vista is widely regarded as one of Microsoft's biggest failures, at launch the operating system suffered from poor software compatibility and performance issues, and the operating system never managed to capture people's heart and mind. Windows 7 on the other hand was an instant success, even the beta version had a relatively huge install-base and many enthusiasts finally saw a reason to upgrade from Windows XP.

Windows 7 was basically an improved version of Windows Vista, it delivered better performance as well as increased usability and functionality. Windows 7 resulted in many satisfied users and over time it managed to overtake Windows XP in terms of marketshare, but even today the over a decade old Windows XP still stands surprisingly strong. According to a November 2012 marketshare report from Net Applications, Windows XP clings on to a marketshare of nearly 40 percent.

This year was exceptionally interesting for Apple in many ways. For starters, this was the first full year under CEO Tim Cook and there were many big announcements, any in themselves enough to highlight a year. With Apple, when is one ever enough? Here’s a highlight reel of what the company brought to the technology landscape and the challenges it faced in 2012.

Guild Wars 2 is the much anticipated sequel to the award winning Guild Wars by ArenaNet. In this review, we will be looking at the character creation process, events and several facets of questing. Guild Wars 2 also includes an excellent player versus player system, including "World versus World", where your server is pit against two other servers in an attempt to control resources which provide in-game bonuses to every player on your realm.

Guild Wars 2 is a fantasy based massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) which sports an upgraded game engine, taking full advantage of current graphics card capabilities. The scenery and music within the game are truly breathtaking, with about as much realism as you'd expect from an MMO in this genre.

Closed loop water cooling is not new, but it certainly is a pretty hot topic now. Some of the first units out there had some interesting issues (like internal corrosion clogging everything up), but once those teething problems were solved the closed loop systems turned out to be pretty effective and easy to install. Initially these units had the performance of a top end air cooler, but with a lot lower noise. The latest generation of liquid cooling systems (LCS) is now further improved and provides performance approaching that of larger, more complex cooling systems. These products will not replace exotic systems like phase change, but they provide a lot of cooling in a fairly decent sized package.

Today we are going to look at one of Corsairs latest liquid CPU coolers, the H55. This is an improved version of the existing H50 cooler which is popular with those looking for a high performance cooler at a very reasonable price point. We look forward to seeing how it fares in our tests.

As we begin to rely more and more on our portable devices, like our smartphones and tablets, to fill the role of tasks our desktop computers used to, we start to find some shortcomings of using portable devices ahead of full computer systems. Audio, for one, on most portable devices leaves a lot to be desired, with little more than one or two small speakers pumping out under powered and mediocre sounding audio. As tablets and portable devices continue to gain market share ahead of more traditional desktop computer systems, a lot of great accessories are starting to hit the market which extend the way we interact with these devices.

Recently released on the market was Samsung's DA-E750 wireless audio dock. Where most audio docks fall short by only supporting maybe one or two different protocols, the DA-E750 supports them all, including; mini USB dock, iPhone/iPad dock, Bluetooth, Airplay, AllShare Play, USB and network playback and of course an auxiliary input too. The DA-E750 has also taken a radically different design approach than most audio docks and looks more like something you'd buy at a boutique audio shop instead of your local electronics store. With a price tag only marginally higher than some high end audio docks on the market, the DA-E750 looks as though it could find itself with many uses around the home, so let's see what it's all about!

Cougar were founded in 2007 and are a company who target their products at enthusiast users and gamers. This allows them to cover a wide range of products and price points and the item we are reviewing today falls into the gamer/budget range. With some stand out styling and a low price point the PowerX 550w PSU looks to offer bronze level efficiency for those looking to build a gaming system, possibly with multiple low-mid range GPUs.

Cisco have long been pioneers in the networking industry, and their acquisition of home-networking company Linksys in 2003 was a way for the tech giant to reach into consumer’s homes. Since then, the company has been releasing a number of routers designed for home use, which aim to be easy to setup while still delivering reliable performance. Their latest effort comes in the form of the Linksys EA6500, which we had a chance to preview at this year’s GITEX.

The popularity of Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices is rapidly ramping up in both small businesses and homes, fueled by their usefulness and their increasing affordability. This surge in interest has led Western Digital to add a new family of hard disk drives - the WD Red family of NAS hard disk drives, even as Seagate drops production of 5,400 RPM desktop hard disk drives.

Of course, this begs the question - why choose a WD Red when the WD Green (formerly known as the WD Caviar Green) hard disk drive is also a low-powered, slower-spinning hard disk drive? It mainly lies in the WD NASware firmware, its comprehensive compatibility testing with common NAS systems and a dedicated WD Red 24x7 support line.

With the growing popularity of home and small office NAS devices, demand has been growing for a new kind of drive: one that can stand being run all day, every day, but won’t break the bank with excessive power draw. Western Digital has developed a new line to fill that role, and today we’ll be taking a look at their latest and greatest, the Red 4TB.

If you are planning on building a desktop PC using an AMD Accelerated Processor we have just the article you you today! We will be using the AMD A10-5800K Trinity APU and looking at how the DDR3 memory kit you select for this platform directly impacts the performance of this 2nd generation APU. Read on to see what speed memory kit to buy!

In game benchmarks we saw a ~38% performance gain by running a 2133MHz memory kit versus a 1333Mhz memory kit. This is a major performance gain and obviously shows that the AMD Radeon HD 7660D integrated graphics was being bottlenecked by the systems memory. If you ever plan on playing games with an APU powered system then you'll want to go with the memory kit with the highest possible clock speed that you can afford...

The high-end Level 10 M Gaming Mouse from Tt eSPORTS was designed in cooperation with BMW Group Subsidiary DesignworksUSA and comes with an aluminum reinforced chassis, 11 programmable command keys and 128KB onboard for storing 5 different gaming profiles. The LED lighting system is present in 4 different areas and the mouse also comes with a laser-sensor engine maxing 8200DPI.

As much I like to talk about SSDs, I have to admit that it all started with my love of laptops and, to this day, hasn’t changed a bit.

It started some years ago when I spoke to Dell’s first release of the XPS laptop and continues even now as I sit aboard yet another flight typing away on my MBA. As much as I had never been a Mac fan, anyone who has handled the new MBA will understand that Apple really went to town on the build of this machine.

A compact mechanical keyboard; is it something that interests you? Today we are looking at the Cmstorm Quickfire TK mechanical keyboard.This is a compact keyboard that is a little different; for example it does not have the usual arrow keys. The question is; is this a product that can successfully compete with the other mechanical keyboards on the market? Let’s find out!